quote:I would like to ask a favor of the atheists and secular humanists who wonder how to approach us religious people. Please do not “accommodate” us. Please do not “confront” us. Instead, get to know us. Please do not presume to know us already. Get to know what Christianity really is, today, on the ground, in churches, in shelters, in food banks, in the slums and streets of our cities. And in so doing get to know some Christians. Not the ones of us whose theology you can tear apart in ten seconds, but the ones who make you think, who challenge you, who respect your point of view. Get to know some of us. And then, at some point, do the unthinkable: Take the risk of disbelieving—just for a moment and as a truly live option—the ideas you think hold you and your world together. Disbelieving is one of the most vitally important things people can do. Without disbelief there is no growth. To disbelieve is to live.
At this point, I would like to thank everyone here who engages in open discussion, and that have changed my world view in many different ways. And I look forward to many more of these discussions.
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While I am fundamentally sympathetic to the author's message, I must say that this statement --
quote:To say something is a myth is not to say it is false. Myth tells truths that are not expressible in discursive language. Myths can be true or false. A false myth, like a bad scientific idea, is quickly discarded because it does not speak the truth about the world. A true myth survives because it resonates deeply with lived human experience.
-- is at the root of the issue, and it's one with which most atheists I know will disagree. (I know I certainly do.) Myths do not tell truths that cannot be otherwise expressed; rather, myths tell lies in order to more easily frame things that are believed to be truths, but which are difficult to justify.
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quote:myths tell lies in order to more easily frame things that are believed to be truths, but which are difficult to justify.
I don't agree with this. Myths are stories about someone or something who may not have existed, but their messages and meanings may be true statements about humanity, or culture, or whatever.
I don't think that myths tell lies anymore than any fiction story lies. And good fiction, like good myths, can form cornerstones in a culture or in someone's beliefs because they contain some sort of truth.
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posted
Reading about how he abandoned the belief in Adam and Eve makes me sad. He describes the relief of getting past cognitive dissonance quite well ("all at once I understood and it felt great").
Sure, one way to deal with the cognitive dissonance caused by ridiculous religious belief is to discard the portions of it that you simply can't swallow. I'd suggest to him that chucking the whole thing would have been the more rational approach. Doesn't he wonder what else he's swallowed that is similarly false?
quote:Not the ones of us whose theology you can tear apart in ten seconds
I think he is deceiving himself if he thinks that his brand of Christianity doesn't fall in this group.
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quote:And, as a pastor friend once told me: One’s theology is basically a question of what holes one can live with.
The Adam and Eve hole he couldn't live with. Other holes (or non-holes, depending) he apparently is fine with.
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And that doesn't strike you as being an insane way to form your beliefs? Just believe everything that you can convince yourself of, then discard the rest?
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Considering there is no historical proof to the existance of Jesus or Moses or any of the 13 disciples, I am proudly an atheists and despise the idea that these people are taught in school to be existing figures outside the elabrant mythological stories of the Bibles.
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Of course not. As the author grew older, a thing that he perceived as truth transformed into a hole. He dropped that belief and moved on. Who doesn't do that?
What one perceives as a hole is very subjective. Things that you see as holes in "his brand of Christianity" may not be holes to him at all. Certain things (e.g. evolution, geological history) are evidence that (in my mind) clearly point out some holes in some Christians' beliefs. I'm willing to argue with them about these points. Other things that I perceive as holes (e.g. the comfort religion provides some people) I'm not willing to argue with.
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quote:Of course not. As the author grew older, a thing that he perceived as truth transformed into a hole. He dropped that belief and moved on. Who doesn't do that?
When the belief that turned into a hole was one his parents or clergy told him was the truth, that makes me fundamentally sad.
I understand that the essay had an uplifting effect on you, but for me it was very frustrating to read.
Edit: Not having had a religious upbringing, the only comparable things I can think of are things my teachers taught me that were merely simplifications, like the Bohr model of the atom or that the Civil War was "about slavery". Even then most teachers are careful to explain that it is a useful model and not meant to be the truth.
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What if his parents and teachers truly believed these things? Are you upset at the system, his parents, teachers, or him?
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My girlfriend was raised believing that everything in the big book was real and will happen (eventually), she was baptised and anointed and all them good things associated with it. And despite the fact her mother and grandmother claim to live life by the big book both of them (expecially her mother) are increadibly hipocritious(spelling???) and her mother is concerned she is going to hell for dating me XD and my girlfriend believed her.
Hell has never been proven to exist, and even worse than eternal damnation is being secluded forever by yourself, to lose your sanity in the vast blackness of alone.
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quote: What if his parents and teachers truly believed these things? Are you upset at the system, his parents, teachers, or him?
In that case I am upset with the people who taught the teachers. Of course this chain of blame goes all the way back to the stone age.
So mostly I am frustrated with human nature. That people (in general) are so conditioned to accept what their parents (and other authorities) tell them as being true, and then their tendency to pass the beliefs onto their children for a whole new cycle of irrational thought.
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quote:Originally posted by Xavier: [QUOTE] So mostly I am frustrated with human nature. That people (in general) are so conditioned to accept what their parents (and other authorities) tell them as being true, and then their tendency to pass the beliefs onto their children for a whole new cycle of irrational thought.
Actually I am an acception to your rule, and my children will be raised not to accept social standings and become sheep like everyone else I know, of course this would make them quite different in the eyes of everyone else.
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quote:Actually I am an acception [sic] to your rule, and my children will be raised not to accept social standings and become sheep like everyone else I know, of course this would make them quite different in the eyes of everyone else.
Yes, I'm aware that there are exceptions .
Added: Also, in my infinite regression of blame, I should note that at some point the teachers are relatively blameless, as at the time no other logic explanations existed for the phenomenon they perceived. The sun being a powerful deity being driven across the sky on a chariot is a fairly rational explanation if you don't know anything about nuclear fusion or gravity.
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quote:Originally posted by Xavier: So mostly I am frustrated with human nature.
And what are you going to do with your frustration? How are you going to make things better? I feel like the way the author approaches this type of discussion is exactly what we need.
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I do agree with the sentiment of the final paragraph:
quote:Please don’t think that I am making this proposal in order to convert atheists to Christianity. What I am offering is merely an alternative to the false dilemma of “accommodation” or “confrontation.” And what I am aiming for is much more modest: For at least one person to think twice before making a caricature of Christianity. Doing so is sloppy thinking and, more often than not, doing so has no effect beyond making serious people write you off. People should criticize Christianity all they want, but they should do so in knowledge—knowledge won by the act of disbelief—and not in ignorance of the thing criticized.
But I don't know how it still won't eventually come down to either an accommodation or confrontation.
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The world is flat because I percieve it that way and not one of you could persuade me differently regardless of how many 3D globes you show me of this flat thing* I live on called Earth.
posted
Having known well and having liked many Christians, and of many different orders of Christianity, my reaction to the OP quote would be this: Everything I have ever liked or admired about another human being has come from that person, not from their race, creed, politics, orientation, gender or nationality. There are many effects any one of these things can have on people, but the fact that you like or admire or trust another human being does not speak directly to the efficacy or righteousness of their beliefs, and even less so, their religion. This is just another manifestation of an appeal to the association fallacy. I like a Christian, it must be because of their religion. Their religion has an effect on them, but what effect? It could as easily be negative, it could as easily turned out not to have much of an effect at all. How do you really know? Why would you really care?
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quote:I like a Christian, it must be because of their religion. Their religion has an effect on them, but what effect? It could as easily be negative, it could as easily turned out not to have much of an effect at all. How do you really know? Why would you really care?
I agree, but that's not the problem. The problem is this:
"Ah, he's a Muslim/Christian/Jew/Atheist. I don't want to talk to/work with/live near him."
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quote:And what are you going to do with your frustration? How are you going to make things better? I feel like the way the author approaches this type of discussion is exactly what we need.
Taking out all of the Christian apologetics (a good portion of the essay), what the article is left with seems to be:
1) Get to know Christians, and earn their trust. 2) Then ask them skeptical questions.
The main problem is that number 2 is considered dreadfully rude in our society. I have no intention of asking skeptical questions to my religious friends (Christian, Muslim, Hindu or otherwise). If I did so, I don't believe we'd stay friends for very long.
Am I missing something? Are the essay's suggestions more nuanced than the above?
Added:
quote: "Ah, he's a Muslim/Christian/Jew/Atheist. I don't want to talk to/work with/live near him."
If this what you consider the problem, I'd suggest that you don't really understand what it is like being an atheist living in the US. Most of my friends (online or otherwise) are religious in some form or another, and I would never avoid them because of this. I suspect most atheists in this country also have a large number of religious friends and acquaintances.
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quote:I like a Christian, it must be because of their religion. Their religion has an effect on them, but what effect?
I think certain belief systems do encourage particular behaviors. So if somebody were to say, "I like fundamentalist Christians because they tend to be extremely genuine and service oriented", I would completely agree. Sure there are exceptions and negative characteristics as well, but my point is why deny that belief systems absolutely affect who people become?
This is something I've been thinking about lately. I consider myself an atheist. Most of the people I know who are committed atheists tend to be more selfish and self-involved than most of the people I know who are committed Christians. But the atheists also tend to be far more tolerant and accepting. I think it's important to recognize what beliefs cause what characteristics so that groups can better focus their beliefs to encompass the behaviors they ideally want.
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quote:Am I missing something? Are the essay's suggestions more nuanced than the above?
I think so. It's not just atheists approaching Christians. It's Christians approaching atheists, Muslims approaching Jews. Anything approaching anything. When you walk up, don't assume that they're fundamentalist or antagonistic. Don't bring any of the stereotype baggage with you. Then you can have a real, honest discussion.
quote:
quote:"Ah, he's a Muslim/Christian/Jew/Atheist. I don't want to talk to/work with/live near him."
If this what you consider the problem, I'd suggest that you don't really understand what it is like being an atheist living in the US. Most of my friends (online or otherwise) are religious in some form or another, and I would never avoid them because of this. I suspect most atheists in this country also have a large number of religious friends and acquaintances.
Again, not just talking about Atheists. How many fights, skirmishes, wars, etc. are ignited and maintained by assumptions and prejudices rather than discussion and an attempt at actual understanding?
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quote:Most of the people I know who are committed atheists tend to be more selfish and self-involved than most of the people I know who are committed Christians.
For me, it's a mixed bag. The Christians I know, on average, aren't really any more or less selfish and self-involved than the atheists, though the atheists are certainly more tolerant. I don't credit the atheists for that though, as it's hard to be subject to any sort of prescriptive/proscriptive doctrine and find yourself more tolerant/accepting than someone who is not so constrained.
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quote:And good fiction, like good myths, can form cornerstones in a culture or in someone's beliefs because they contain some sort of truth.
But this does not make the myths true. The myths -- like all fictions -- are lies.
That is what fiction is. It is lies.
The lies may make certain things that are true easier to swallow, or easier to understand. The lies may also make other things that are untrue easier to swallow or understand. The more salient point is that, based on the myth alone, you don't have a credible framework to decide; you must judge the "truths" asserted or bolstered by the myth based on how they jibe with the rest of your accumulated experience.
And that still doesn't make the myths any more true. It just means that they're useful to you, in your opinion.
"Useful" and "true" are not synonyms. This is a very important concept that liberal religious people need to understand when seeking to have conversations with atheists.
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quote:When you walk up, don't assume that they're fundamentalist or antagonistic. Don't bring any of the stereotype baggage with you. Then you can have a real, honest discussion.
Ah, I guess that's the disconnect. I don't do this. When I meet a Christian (or Muslim or Hindu), I don't assume any such thing.
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quote:Don't bring any of the stereotype baggage with you. Then you can have a real, honest discussion.
No, you can't. The real honest discussion requires mutual cooperation. I'm perfectly willing to discuss what people really believe and share what I really believe, but very few of the people I interact with regularly are in a position to do the same. Maybe it's just the geography I'm in, but introspective, accepting, and open discussion just isn't the norm.
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quote:Maybe it's just the geography I'm in, but introspective, accepting, and open discussion just isn't the norm.
I agree it's not the norm, regardless of geography. But I think if people feel safe and you probe gently, most people do end up enjoying such discussions.
Personally, I don't know how others can have meaningful relationships without understanding what and how people think. At work, there's two other people on my "team" that I work with constantly all day. I find the idea of never discussing anything important to me or to them to just be unbearable. When I first approached these types of discussions (individually- they started at different years), each was pretty reticent and uncomfortable. With time and care though, both seem to enjoy them and start them now with some regularity. I think the key is to come off as open and genuinely interested and avoid topics that you know will make them upset.
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quote:Sure, one way to deal with the cognitive dissonance caused by ridiculous religious belief is to discard the portions of it that you simply can't swallow. I'd suggest to him that chucking the whole thing would have been the more rational approach.
Why would this be more rational?
If my science textbook led me to believe that an electron was a tiny blue sphere that traveled in a perfect circle around a nucleus and then I later learned that was untrue, would it be more rational of me to correct that one particular belief or to cease trusting anything I learned from science textbooks?
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If my science textbook led me to believe that an electron was a tiny blue sphere that traveled in a perfect circle around a nucleus and then I later learned that was untrue, would it be more rational of me to correct that one particular belief or to cease trusting anything I learned from science textbooks?
But he didn't "learn it wasn't true". He simply realized that it was ridiculous. His trusted source of "truth" fed him a complete falsehood. One so obviously false that he rejected it completely once old enough to think about it critically.
How would you learn that electrons don't perfectly rotate around a nucleus? From science. So of course you wouldn't abandon science. It's the thing that corrected your false belief. Science is self-correcting. That's kind of the whole point.
posted
I think this article fails to grasp WHY it is that athiests do feel that there is a battle going on, why language such as "attack" their beliefs are used. And the problem is not that one carries such belief, its that said beliefs shape policy. When creationists shape policy to try and disallow evolution being taught in schools, what options are there other than to attack?
When something like 35% of Americans believe the bible is literally true, and most importantly vote for policy based on this, its not the biggest issue that the relatively small subgroup of Christians who feel the same way as the author feel slighted at the atheist's inability to disbelieve. Because the type of people who resonate with what this article said are not the type of people lobbying their school board to teach intelligent design. And to many atheists, the latter is a far bigger problem.
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Yeah we've had this "science vs religion" discussion before. I don't think I'm interested in rehashing the whole thing.
I guess I should have known that's the direction the discussion would go after my post.
I would just point out that if you are trying to have a reasonable discussion with most atheists, trying to prop up religion as a valid epistemology comparable to science isn't going to win you many points.
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quote:Originally posted by The White Whale: Do you then give in to the norm? Or do you at least try?
If they bring the baggage and you bring the baggage, there's no discussion.
If they bring the baggage and you don't, you at least tried.
If both of you don't bring the baggage, then you can have a discussion.
My problem with this article is that, in my experience, it is rarely the atheist who is carrying the baggage. I only know one atheist who may be incapable of a thoughtful, respectful conversation about the nature of beliefs with a religious person, but then she was brutally sexually abused by "devout Mormons" when she was young so she's got bigger issues that she's still working through.
The rest of them carry relatively nuanced views about religion and are open to conversation but all understand that the it's risky to try it because of the ubiquity of antipathy for atheism. Even acknowledging atheism around here is almost like coming out gay. You have to be very careful about who you tell and how you do it.
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quote: Even acknowledging atheism around here is almost like coming out gay. You have to be very careful about who you tell and how you do it.
Yeah, I went to a meeting for new members for "Omaha Atheists" held at Borders. It was hilarious how people who entered asked if they were in the right place.
"Is this the... meetup for the group... in Omaha... the get together... new members..."
No one wanted to reveal to a group that they were an atheist.
Added: I'd also point out that at least a few of the people who attended had never met an "out of the closet" atheist before the meetup.
posted
I have one friend that is has been "in the closet" for many years and only recently "came out" to his immediate family. He still keeps up appearances to everyone else though, attending church services, teaching Sunday School, administering "sacred ordinances", etc. The perceived social cost of coming out is so great that he'd rather keep up the facade than risk it.
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posted
Let's be fair, though: it is precisely those sorts of atheists who most often do wind up bearing baggage into these sorts of conversations.
But, IMO, whether or not there's bitterness -- and whether or not that bitterness is deserved -- on either side is a bit beside the point. That bitterness shouldn't preclude the possibility of civil communication, and atheists who can't set any lingering bitterness aside are just as destructive to civility as religious people. This is, as far as I'm concerned, an acknowledged given.
More important, however, is the fact that, to an atheist, things that are not true are false. Religious people have a much vaguer understanding of the word "true," in my experience, and are as a consequence far easier to insult; what they mean by "true" is what most atheists might mean by "desirable."
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quote:Let's be fair, though: it is precisely those sorts of atheists who most often do wind up bearing baggage into these sorts of conversations.
Which atheists? The people I'm talking about don't exhibit much bitterness at all. The overriding obstacle for them is fear or, perhaps more precisely, prudence. You can't have a frank conversation because either a) you or your family will be punished for your aberrant beliefs and/or b) the religious person is likely to be offended by such a discussion.
I would *love* to be able to discuss this sort of stuff with the religious people all around me, but very few people are amenable to a conversation about the nature of belief. There just isn't that much reflection going on and people seem, at best, to find it an uncomfortable topic.
quote:Even acknowledging atheism around here is almost like coming out gay. You have to be very careful about who you tell and how you do it.
Expanding on this some more... When accepting the meetup on meetup.com for the Omaha Atheists Group meeting, it asks if you want to automatically announce it on your Facebook page. Niki (my wife) did so.
Her Mom, something of a closet atheist, made a point of telling her she was nuts for putting it out there like that. She said she considered "liking" the posting, but didn't out of fear that others would think that she herself was an atheist (which would be true!).
Her father, who is about as liberal of a Christian as they come (to the point where I'd describe him as being "spiritual" instead of "religious"), was fairly upset that Niki came out that way.
posted
I've heard the same thing from my wife - "Just don't use the 'A'-word." Seriously. I list my religion on Facebook as "None of the above."
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MattP: I can certainly accept that the vast majority of Mormons in Utah are no good at having a good conversation about belief with an atheist. At best they will just drop "We'll just have to agree to disagree" at worst they will condemn you. But that is precisely because they have so little experience talking with atheists. Of course they are going to get it wrong the first few times.
It wasn't until I was in my 20's that I even seriously entertained the idea that atheists were not just hedonists or jaded former believers. It wasn't because I didn't want to change my mind, I just didn't have a lot of atheists to talk to, and the few my age were very immature like me and hence their beliefs sounded almost comical to my ears. I'm sure I would have sounded just as comical in describing my views to an adult.
But without that exposure you never make any changes. I just happened upon Hatrack and that's where I got it. Atheists, especially ones raised that way are not intrinsically better at discussing belief, though they often are raised in households where they at least have some understanding of the major religions and their dogmas.
My roommate in college was an ex-mormon/atheist. I thought he was a wonderful individual, he changed many of my misconceptions just by being himself. We got into some arguments because he felt I was too intelligent to really remain a Mormon, and all I needed was somebody to give me a little push. Was there a risk either of us might piss of the other, sure, but we didn't, and when our paths split up again, I was better off for our conversations even if at the time they had seemed futile.
Anyway, I'm droning on, but Matt, there are many Mormons, and some of these I am lucky enough to have had in my own family (both immediate and extended) where atheism isn't an automatic strike against your character. As the years have gone by some of my family have walked away from religion and decided on atheism. Somehow they still make it to family functions and we all have a good time. I feel comfortable asking them how they arrived in the place they have, and they know its safe to talk about it with me.
Sure we have people who can't handle it, and were it brought up they would stand up and loudly remonstrate these family members, but by and large we've accepted that if active temple recommend holding was a requirement for family solidarity, we'd have a very fractured family.
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quote:Originally posted by MattP: I list my religion on Facebook as "None of the above."
I was curious about this, so I did a quick tally of my friends on Facebook, just based on what is listed in their Info box and not based on any extra knowledge I may have.
Rounded, it came out to (grouping by non-religious, religious, and other). Exact matches by quotes and non-quoted categories are my own: "Atheist" 6% "Agnostic" 6% "None" 2%
Christian 10% "Jewish" 2%
Joke 10% Nothing 52% Other 10%
How do you guys fare?
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quote:I like a Christian, it must be because of their religion. Their religion has an effect on them, but what effect?
I think certain belief systems do encourage particular behaviors. So if somebody were to say, "I like fundamentalist Christians because they tend to be extremely genuine and service oriented", I would completely agree. Sure there are exceptions and negative characteristics as well, but my point is why deny that belief systems absolutely affect who people become?
No, I'm sorry, this does not obtain. I don't deny that belief systems affect how people become- I explicitly state that they *do*. My objection is with this association fallacy- you do not have a strong argument in favor of the idea that a religion is responsible for making a person that way, *and* that another organized cultural structure not related to theism or god-based faith would not have the same effect. In short you can show that some religious people are kind and generous, but you cannot show that it is their faith that makes them this way. You can only show a correlation according to your personal bias. That is not worth much, I'm sorry to say.
You ought to be far, far more skeptical of your assumptions as well. You will accept, I'm sure, that certain people of tremendous religious faith are also radical, violent, hateful and antisocial. You may even argue that, as is true in the case of many of these people, that it is the religious teachings they have received which have warped them so. Quite right too- but there's the problem with your supposition. If they posses strong faith in god, and have been taught a morally warped religious view, then really their faith in god has done nothing to instill in them any of the values you admire. Instead, a religion has been used to instill entirely different values, and negative ones. So you can see that even supposing all religious people share a real faith in the existence of god, the values that cause those people to act and think the way they do are religious ones, and those may be of any variety under the sun. So what does faith do to someone, if so many of the faithful disagree so much on what is morally correct? If they kill each other? Or is that religion- a social organizational tool?
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posted
I caught a bit of an interview with an author of a book/study on religion the other day and they mentioned that religious people do actually perform more service, but that they'd been unable to find any religious causality. The benevolent behavior, they concluded, was a result of the sense of community found within most major religions rather than any particular doctrine or practices.
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quote:Sure, one way to deal with the cognitive dissonance caused by ridiculous religious belief is to discard the portions of it that you simply can't swallow. I'd suggest to him that chucking the whole thing would have been the more rational approach.
Why would this be more rational?
Ok, wanted to isolate this for clarity- we'll come back to it. Here you have asked a question. Now you provide an analogy.
quote: If my science textbook led me to believe that an electron was a tiny blue sphere that traveled in a perfect circle around a nucleus and then I later learned that was untrue, would it be more rational of me to correct that one particular belief or to cease trusting anything I learned from science textbooks?
Ok, Tres: this is and has long been your fundamental disconnect in terms of understanding the philosophy of science versus that of religion.
First you ask why it is more rational to discard a religion if you don't agree with some of its basic tenets, rather than just chucking those you don't like. Ok.
Second you make an analogy to scientific *theories* and *facts* being wrong in a textbook, and say you wouldn't throw out all scientific textbooks for that mistake. Ok again. But what you fail to connect here is that scientific *theories* and *facts* are frequently corrected by the pursuit of better *theories* and *facts* through the *scientific method*. So if you had been taught to understand science properly when you were a young child, you would know when reading a textbook, that its statements should be based on findings obtained, and theories devised using the *scientific method*. You should understand that these findings and theories are subject to inevitable revision, in the face of further data and better theories. In fact, the book veritably presents itself to you as a challenge to you to find ways of disproving the claims it makes. And that happens all the time, scientists read those books, then realize there are problems with the theories and facts, then they research those problems, and then they write new books with better facts, and more robust theories, and along the way, everybody reaps the benefit of all this wonderful knowledge we have of the world, and all the ways that knowledge helps us to thrive.
Now to your first part again. Why is it not rational to do the same thing with religious doctrines? Well, it is rational at the base to discard beliefs you find inequitable with your observations of the world. However, take this analogy as an alternative to your own: you go to McDonald's with the intent of finding a wholesome and well balanced diet for the day. You find that doing so requires you to buy a wide variety of McDonald's products, cannibalize various components from different dishes and mix them together in an unpleasing fashion- hamburgers but no buns, a pack of ketchup, a parfe, one coke, and a pickle, or some such combination (this has been done by many researchers).
Now, would it not be more rational, faced with a restaurant designed to serve single meals of fries and burgers with sodas, to leave the restaurant and go to a grocery store, where the items are packaged in such a way as to allow you to make more convenient and appetizing choices that fulfill your needs at a maximum of efficiency and a minimum of waste (think of all the buns thrown away!)?
If you were to take only the parts of the scientific method that you liked, and ignore the rest, the purpose of that system would be completely obliterated. It is a system of thought which works to improve knowledge simply because it encourages a cohesive process. Religious doctrines are also parts of cohesive wholes, and if you feel the need to ignore and selectively observe only some of them, that ought to tell you that you're shopping in the wrong store- that this cohesive whole you're picking at is not something you should be spending your time on. Because in the work of selectively observing your take on any given religious system, you have effectively substituted your own rational thinking for the philosophy in which your religion is rooted. You have done all the moral footwork of patching together a belief system you feel is right, and you've called it by the name of something you don't *really* believe in. That isn't rational.
So here's the fallout from all this. You get a few different kinds of people. You get those who pick and choose and effectively make up their own private philosophies- ones they craft using the pieces they have to resemble those of people they admire. They call themselves religious, maybe a certain religion in particular, but really, they just don't have the courage to call themselves anything else (my bias- maybe it's not about courage). Then you get the hard liners. They have done all this math and realized that they still very much need to believe in *their* religion, but in order to do so they need to believe it *all.* And they figure out how to do that- they rationalize every belief they have, and can become incredibly inventive about ways of making it all work together. They can be peaceful or scary- it depends on how necessary it is to them that their religion *work* for them. Many of them are so tried by this challenge that they become the religious philosophers. They find ways of staying in the bounds of all their doctrines, and yet bending and shaping those very doctrines, and how they are interpreted, to fit their own morality. But again, they end up serving their own moral purposes. They end up seeking some reason, some rational process that makes sense to them, and to as many others as possible. The literal transubstantiation of Catholicism becomes, over time, a sort of dualist belief in the literal and the figurative forms. And when those interpretations are set- they could have always been there. They fit better than what was there before.
Then you just have your humanists, your atheists, your whomever. We study the world around us, and examine our own senses of morality, and we try to make the best of things. To my mind- it's a blissful study in focus and perspective. No baggage, no threads of different size to weave together.
quote:Originally posted by MattP: I've heard the same thing from my wife - "Just don't use the 'A'-word." Seriously. I list my religion on Facebook as "None of the above."
As an atheist, I just have that question not even displayed at all for the awkwardness reason.
I also like to visit low-brow gossip blogs . This was comment of the day (I didn't write it):
quote: Me. . . well, I am an atheist. An atheist with a slightly Buddhist-influenced, science-fictiony belief in the conservation of energy and matter. And one embracing of the fact that the universe contains many surprises, miracles even. For me it's enough that the universe is itself miraculous. I don't need the hand of god (anthropomorphized or otherwise) to appreciate the world or to act as a moral person. Period. I am not out attacking Christians or trying to *convert* them to non-belief. I don't think I am generically smarter than the religious, although I sometimes wonder how they could believe x or y. Much the way they wonder why I cannot see their *truth,* I suspect. I'd simply like the same level of respect and understanding of my non-belief as they would like to have for their faith. (See, even atheists know about the Golden Rule.) And while these billboards and cheesy and lame, it's kind of nice to know there are enough of us out there to merit a sign or two. I live in a liberal bastion and still I don't go around telling people I am atheist, even on occasions when it might be appropriate to do so. I have no problem telling feminist-haters that I am a feminist or shouting my pro-choice and pro-gay marriage politics from the rooftops. But when it comes to straight up not believing in god. . . awkward. My socially liberal but southern, churchgoing in-laws have no idea. Neither do many of my friends. God is a given for the majority of Americans, including many of my not-very-often-practicing Christian and Jewish friends. Being an atheist is, to some degree, being an outsider. Being untrustworthy on the most basic level to someone who is religious. A sinner. It would be nice to feel like this was something I could mention when appropriate, without exhaustively defending myself, but quite often it seems like it would have only a negative effect. So I am silent. And I don't like feeling like I should be silent.
Given the quote from the first post, it seems like both sides are feeling attacked, when neither is actually trying (apart from on the internet).
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quote:Originally posted by Xavier: [QUOTE]So mostly I am frustrated with human nature. That people (in general) are so conditioned to accept what their parents (and other authorities) tell them as being true, and then their tendency to pass the beliefs onto their children for a whole new cycle of irrational thought.
I know the conversation has gone past this, so forgive me if I'm being repetitive or whatnot
Anyway, I can really understand your comment here. Nothing is more frustrating than someone who absolutely refuses to realize that they are incorrect and stubbornly hold on to false truths because someone they trust more than you told them this "truth."
However, I also feel this trait is a large part of why we've advanced as a species. I have done absolutely no independent research into the Earth of its shape or size or anything. I believe the teachers and whatnot who have told me that the Earth is round and orbits around the sun, etc. Without that knowledge being told to me I would probably (if I thought of it at all) come to some other conclusion similar to all those scientists who swore up and down the Earth was flat.
Trusting in someone else can get you burned, sure, but it also corrects that "collective knowledge" that lives past the original discoverer and enables us to advance beyond that knowledge.
Anyway, that was all. Carry on.
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And I look forward to many more of these discussions.
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